


Any Time, Evan

by howboutinotdothis



Series: Nobody Peaks in Middle School [2]
Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: alana is lonely, evan is lonely, middle school au based on a post i made because I'm trash for middle school aus, now they can be lonely together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-15
Updated: 2017-04-15
Packaged: 2018-10-19 01:14:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10629111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/howboutinotdothis/pseuds/howboutinotdothis
Summary: In that moment, Alana really feels bad for Evan Hansen. He’s such a sweet boy—he’s the type of kid who gets stuck holding the door open for the entire class at the end of each period because he’s too nice to let the door fall shut on someone else. He listens to Alana go on and on each morning before school and nods and interjects an intelligent comment in his usual stammering, mumbling manner at all the right places. Heck, he hangs out with Jared Kleinman, and Jared’s…well, Jared is Jared, and she’ll leave it at that.





	

**Author's Note:**

> this is based off of dis post --> https://jaredkleinmanisanerd.tumblr.com/post/159490676084/okay-but-alana-and-evan-being-friends-in-middle
> 
> i decided to write this because sleep is for the weak
> 
> pls enjoy, comments/kudos/crit always welcome!

“So, who can tell me which tissue transports water through plants?”

Alana’s hand twitches with the urge to raise her hand and answer as the silence in the classroom stretches on, but it’s a testament to her willpower that she manages to keep her right hand firmly pressed on her notebook, tapping her pen against the notebook paper and marring her precise notes with a bunch of random dots. She’ll be annoyed by the markings later when she’s reading over her notes for the test, but she needs to do _something_ with her hand or she’s going to implode.

Alana has always been the type of kid who raises their hand even if they don’t know the answer to the question because a guess is better than nothing, you know? And her teachers, up until now, have appreciated her enthusiasm for the learning process and called on her and let her say her piece before saying “right as always, Alana” or “good job, Alana” or “not quite, but close” even if her answer wasn’t close at all.

That’s changed in middle school. The teachers ignore her raised hand, asking “anyone else” like Alana answering would be the absolute worst thing in the world. When they let her answer, they’ll rarely mumble a grudging “good job”—they’ll usually continue on as if she didn’t say anything. That wasn’t enough to get Alana to stop raising her hand, though; her father always said that, if you ever want anything to get done, you have to persist even when people don’t want you to. So, Alana persisted all the way through her first year of middle school, trying not to let her teachers’ annoyance get to her.

She hasn’t been able to keep it up this year.

The teachers refuse to call on her, preferring to answer themselves or call on someone at random rather than let Alana answer. That still wasn’t enough to get Alana to stop; she was positive she’d wear them down eventually.

No, it was when their science teacher sat her down and told her to cut it out that Alana finally gave up. “You need to let the other students answer, Alana. We all know you’re a very smart girl; you don’t have to keep trying to prove it,” he told her, as if Alana was desperate for the approval of a thirty year old man with a beer gut and a neck beard. She wanted to argue, tell him that she wasn’t answering because she wanted to prove her intelligence, she was answering because she _enjoys_ answering questions. She likes participating in class. Academics are where she naturally excels, and she feels more at home in the classroom than she does on the playground or in the cafeteria.

Or, well, she used to. Now that her teachers have banded together to “give the other kids a chance” Alana feels just as out of place in her classes as she does anywhere else. That isolated feeling that always crept in during breaks and lunchtime is now constantly there, hollowing her out inside and making her wish things were different. Wish she had someone to talk to. Wish she had someone to pass secret notes to in class and to sit with at lunch and to invite over on the weekends.

But wishing for something is pointless. If you want something, you have to put in time and effort, that’s what her dad always says. So Alana’s joined a million clubs and helped plan school events, and that’s gotten her a few invitations to sleepovers and outings with some of the other girls, but those aren’t exactly fun. Those are almost worse than spending weekends alone, if she’s being honest. Because then that feeling of not being one of them is there and she has to admit to herself that none of those girls are really her friends—they’re just girls trying to be polite and doing what their moms tell them to.

Which means Alana doesn’t actually have any friends.

As the silence drags on in the classroom, Alana glances to her right, watching as Evan Hansen mouths the answer to himself over and over, like maybe if he says it to himself enough someone else will suddenly answer and he won’t have to worry about the teacher calling on him. Alana knows he worries about that excessively—she’s seen the way his shoulders tense and the way his knee starts bouncing up and down when the teacher announces that they’re going to call on someone at random.

Alana’s gaze slides from his face to his notebook. Evan’s a doodler; most pages of his notebook are decorated with poorly drawn trees and flowers, branches and leaves curling around his chicken scratch handwriting. Alana thinks it’s cool that Evan draws despite being horrible at it. That’s kind of thing her dad would say builds character—continuing to do something even when you can’t do it very well.

Today though, there’s nothing on his notebook, and Alana’s a bit apprehensive; Evan _always_ takes notes. Sure, they’re completely illegible and probably useless when it comes to studying, but Evan takes notes anyways, scrambling to jot down every word out of the teacher’s mouth like he thinks the test is going to ask him to quote the lecture verbatim. For a moment, Alana thinks that something might be wrong with Evan, but then she notices that there’s no pen in his left hand or lying on his desk.

In that moment, Alana really feels bad for Evan Hansen. He’s such a sweet boy—he’s the type of kid who gets stuck holding the door open for the entire class at the end of each period because he’s too nice to let the door fall shut on someone else. He listens to Alana go on and on each morning before school and nods and interjects an intelligent comment in his usual stammering, mumbling manner at all the right places. Heck, he hangs out with _Jared Kleinman_ , and Jared’s…well, Jared is Jared, and she’ll leave it at that.

Anyways, Evan is nice, but he’s so—so _timid_. He jumps at loud noises and he never asks questions in class and he never speaks to anyone unless they speak to him first. He spends all of their breaks with his nose in a book and he lets people copy his homework when they ask because he’s horrible at saying no. It’s like he’s always trying to make as minimal of an impact on the rest of the world as he possibly can, and it breaks Alana’s heart a little.

Alana glances down at her pen contemplatively. It’s her favorite pen—it’s an expensive fountain pen with her initials engraved on the side that her father gave her for her last birthday. Not the most conventional gift for a thirteen year old girl, but Alana loves it all the same.

But, in the end, the pen is just a thing, and people are more important than things.

Alana places the pen on the edge of Evan’s desk casually, like she leaves pens on his desk all the time, and she ignores his startled look, opting to grab one of her cheap gel pens from the front pocket of her backpack instead. The abrupt transition between black ink and blue ink in her notes is a little annoying, but the teacher has recovered from his poor attempt at getting the students to participate and has returned to lecturing about vascular plants, so Alana doesn’t have time to switch out pens again.

The rest of class continues in the same monotonous fashion, but she can feel Evan looking over at her periodically, probably trying to figure out why she would give him the pen she’s spent many a morning mooning over to him. Alana likes that he seems to understand the gravity of what she’s done; Alana hasn’t merely let Evan borrow a pen. She’s extended an offer of friendship—of real friendship, not the fake stuff she has with the girls in their grade. And Evan understands that because he’s perceptive, and Alana likes that about him.

At the end of class, Evan holds the pen out to Alana, bridging the literal gap between their desks and the metaphorical gap between the two of them, or something. She doesn’t know. That sounds deep and meaningful though, so she’ll roll with it.

“Th-thanks, Alana. You didn’t have—not that I’m not grateful, but—um, thanks, uh, that was nice. Of you. So thanks.”

It comes out in a quick mumble, quiet enough that Alana thinks he might not really want her to her what he’s saying, but it’s sincere and it makes her smile wide, the corner of her eyes crinkling in a way that her father says is adorable but that annoys her to no end. She can’t bring herself to care though.

“Any time, Evan.” She says it like a promise, because it is a promise, isn’t it? It’s a promise of friendship—maybe not forever friendship, but at least some kind of camaraderie between two kids who can’t seem to fit in. That’s enough for her and, if the shy smile spreading on Evan’s lips is any indication, that’s enough for him too.

**Author's Note:**

> alana and evan are my brotp and you will have to pry their friendship from my cold dead hands
> 
> if you want more of this, like one shots of them in middle school (or them + other characters in middle school), tell me in the comments below or come tell me at @jaredkleinmanisanerd on tumblr


End file.
